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Saturday, November 26, 2011

My Thanksgiving morning was perfectly nostalgic. Up early to put the turkey on and make a nice breakfast. followed by watching the Macy's Thanksgiving parade on TV . . . updated a bit because as I watched, I cut setting triangles and assembled a Christmas quilt top from those old swap blocks.

With a large design wall, it was a lot easier to figure out what I meant by my mysteriously coded sketch and lay out the blocks.

It seems I always have to go look up setting triangle math, whenever I put blocks on point. I know that the magic number is the square root of 2–1.414–but I never remember what to do with it ... so off to the computer I go.

Here's how I will remember NEXT time:

Since I'll need MORE side triangles, I MULTIPLY the finished block size by 1.414. Then, because I am going to cut the square into quarters, as for quarter-square-triangle units, add 1 1/4 for the seam allowances.

For the corners, I do the opposite and DIVIDE the finished size block by 1.414. Because I am going to cut them diagonally in half, like half-square-triangle unites, add 7/8 inch.

For both kinds of triangles, round the measurements to the nearest 1/8 inch ... so you can easily cut them.

For the corners, I used the twelve inch star block as the starting point. 12 / 1.414 + 7/8 = 9 3/8 inches. Because I inserted six inch 4-patches into the side setting triangles, I used 6 in the side triangle math. 6 * 1.414 + 1 1/4 = 9 3/4.